Report: Sporting reject Arsenal offer for Carvalho

O Jogo report this morning that Sporting Clube de Portugal (Sporting Lisbon) have rejected a €30m offer from Arsenal for William Carvalho.

With the Gunners on the look out for a central defender to replace the soon to depart Thomas Vermaelen, the Portuguese newspaper say that Arsenal’s offer fell too far short of the player’s contractual release clause of around €45m

They say that Arsenal suggested a two-part payment for the transfer and suggest that this might have been a factor in the rejection. Of course if Arsenal pay the full release clause their desire to keep the player won’t matter, but after spending £30m on Alexis Sanchez, it seems unlikely that Arsene Wenger will splash out £35m+ for the 22 year old.

Wenger’s desire to sign a centre-half comes after his admission yesterday that he was unsure if Thomas Vermaelen would be staying at the club or not. Which, when you think about it, is a diplomatic way of saying he’s willing to let the Belgian leave.

With just Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny as senior central-defenders, the Gunners need to strengthen this area sooner rather than later, especially as the German won’t be back at the club until the beginning of next month due to his extended post-World Cup break.. [irrelevant – ed]

This story has confused us. It’s early and we’re hungover. He’s a defensive midfielder, not a centre-half. But they still rejected the bid.

85 COMMENTS

Anyway, unusual that a report that we’ve had a bid rejected without two months of waffle beforehand. Almost makes it seem like there could be something in it. He’s supposed to be an Arsenal fan IIRC for what it’s worth.

It’s as confusing as I thought we want to piss Jose “I am always a righteous cunt so to prove everyone I’m right I’ve let the title slip out of my hands last season” Morinho and play a little bit of top quality mind games with the utter cunt

We should go for Eric Dier (England U21) of Sporting Lisbon pr Benedickt Howedes from Schalke as a backup CB. One of them would be a good signing. Dier can also play DM while Howedes can play RB, CB And LB as he did in The World Cup.

I’ve watched this lad for quite a little while now and if we sign him he can be the physical DM we want and is very adept at central defensive position (obvs that would be put to the test in the bpl) I hope the poo-ometer goes down, but hey football is football….

He was voted best player in Portugal by a mile last season. He’s only 22 and really very, very, strong. He’s more of a true holding midfielder than Khedira or Lars Bender who are more box to box. He’s also an Arsenal fan according to reports. I think after Paul Pogba he is the best young defensive midfielder in the world.

I just did an extremely runny poo. If anything it was full-on proper diarrhoea. Truly spectacular. Like ‘wiping it off the back of my balls’ spectacular. I think it may have been brought on by this rumour. Or maybe it was just last night’s stir fry that I reheated.

There’s no chance that they will let him go for less than the buy-out price they put on him because the main business of all the top teams in Portugal comes from buying cheap young prospects from South America, getting them their Euro passport, hyping their reputations up, and slapping on a nice buy-out price so that they can generate a good earner by selling those same players on to other European clubs as soon as they do something of note.

They don’t want to keep the guy they want to sell him for at least the price they have set, but not less.

Sporting are renowned for being stubborn. Look at what they did with Moutinho and Veloso when they were young, didn’t let them leave due to their huge buy-out clauses and didn’t want to negotiate and arguably stunted the potential of both players.

No way. He’s clearly a very good defensive midfielder; strong, tall, athletic and good on the ball too. I don’t think he’s going anywhere right now. £20-25 million, good value. But 45 euros is too much. Either Sporting will keep him for a few more years and sell him for a more realistic deal later in his contract, or one of the Oil Daddy clubs will pay that for him. Then again, is anybody worth 45m? I know that’s the inflation of the market and capitalism and shit but it’s a ridiculous amount of money for one player. These players nowadays would never have made it in the Communist countries where professional sports were not allowed, where you’d win the league in the evening and then go to your job as a train driver. Can you picture Na$ri doing that? In a boiler suit in the daytime working on truck engines, living in a drab East German flat with pickle jars lining the walls, playing for free just to see the happiness on the young kids’ faces. Me neither.

I think you have to put that into context, we are replacing some positions, and only 3, maybe 4 players will be starters, with the others just squad additions. The spuds brought in 7 players and looked to use as many as possible.

Vermaelen’s problem is he cannot force himself into rotation with Meterscielny and this may become a big issue next season.

I’m not sure if we have quite as much money to spend on a Cback but likely the attributes for a new Cback should include relative experience but still young 23-25 being ideal. Also, a bit of Metersecker’s height and Koscielny’s speed will help.

Fourth choice Cback may go to Miquel who is still only 22 which makes me suspicious why we would pay so much according to this report for a similar age player from Portugal.

Likely the player to be highly considered will be Campbell who holds the ball up well with a 5’10 frame, has a good first touch and distribution plus plenty of pace.

Had he been bought this summer, there would be quite a bit of fanfare however being that he was snatched some summers past involving a run around by Dick Law in a central American jungle, most fans have given him short rift as has the media not surprisingly.

@22 following an excellent season with Olympiacos, not to mention a very good world cup 9when you consider Henry in 98 did not have quite as productive a time), Campbell should see the nod. If he gets passed, he will likely leave.

Rather, the player I now feel has a question mark over his head (whether to keep in first squad or loan) is Sanogo. He is physically closest to Giroud and provides height. I expect Wenger will take a close look at this situation through the summer but if he is still not yet settled (ie broken his duck at least with pre-season friendlies), Wenger may opt for some experience cover to giroud. Maybe a loan if can be engineered for an older player may come in handy as a stop gap much like Debuchy for either of jenkinson or bellerin in two seasons.

one player I wouldn’t mind snapping for 10m or under is Michu. he has sufficient height to replicate Giroud but also gives us guile up top, is familiar with Santi/Monreal and can be deployed to LW in lieu of a Rosicky retirement down the line.

Well, I am excited by this link, and I am certain that this does not deserve the 10 poos as it originated from Portuguese papers and not Goal.com or Caughtoffisde (who claimed Khedira is to be revealed soon, BS lords)